Experimental development of a multifunctional liquid rocket engine with oxygen-cooled combustion chamber: results of 2009-2014

The paper reviews results of stand-alone firing tests on experimental combustion chambers developed at RSC Energia for the multifunctional oxygen-hydrocarbon liquid rocket engine 11D58MF with cooling of the chamber with liquid oxygen without the rings of the inner curtain for cooling with fuel, conducted in 2009-2014. The thrust chamber coolant channels were designed taking into consideration the flow behavior of the supercritical cryogenic oxygen. Seven thrust chamber specimens differing in design successfully passed 27 firing tests. The tests were conducted at different pressures in the combustion chamber, oxidizer-to-fuel ratios and ratios of coolant oxygen to oxygen fed into combustion chamber. Key design parameters of the chambers were verified: the amount of increase in specific impulse due to removal of curtain rings cooling the chamber with fuel, heating of the oxygen in the cooling channel and the pressure drop in it was measured. The results of tests on the chambers confirmed the efficiency of cooling the oxygen-hydrocarbon liquid rocket engine with cryogenic oxygen.